Role Reversal
by BlackFeatherz29
Summary: Semi-AU They say that the surroundings make the person. A look at the Rookie Nine as they grow up in reversed situations. Genfic. Contains spoilers. No pairings. May contain some OOCness. No longer a one-shot. Character 2: Sasuke part 2
1. Overview

Role Reversal

By BlackFeatherz29

This was part of a passing idea that I had. Recently, I had watched a Japanese drama called 3-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei 6, and it touched me to the very bottom of my heart. I had originally wanted to write a fic based on the Sandaime (Sarutobi-sensei) having a class with the genin as the students, but I realized that this would take far, far too long. The roles that I was going to put the Naruto chars in were based on the drama, but although they were in the same spirit, the situations were vastly different. Then it got me thinking... if the gang grew up in directly opposite childhoods, what would they do?

Anyway, I was originally going to write a series of character introspectives, one chapter for each character. But as soon as I started to write, I thought, 'Nah.' I don't have the kind of patience to write nine quality oneshots. I'm really weak at them, see. I'm wordy and I can't get the timing right. So, I was lazy and just wrote one paragraph on each in third person.

The opening statements are kind of the beginning of my thought process. First comes the opposite situation. Then comes the brainstorming. Yes, I did tweak some major conflicts in the timeline; don't kill me! And especially don't kill me if you are spoiled by my twisted timeline; I put that spoiler warning in the summary for a reason. Yes, many of these will be sad. Sad, not tragic. I really like all the characters of the Rookie Nine, and it would be a shame for any one of them to be a faceless kill-able background character. At least all of them will survive to age twelve. At least.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and I don't own the chars. But these situations are entirely of my own ideas, and however much you like or despise them, they'll still only belong to me. Feel free to criticize or speculate. Don't kill me for any mistakes in the background knowledge; my Naruto history is a little rusty since I'm only reading the most recent manga scans.

Theme song: This is Home, by Switchfoot. (heh. I was listening to it while writing this.)

* * *

1. Naruto was born Namikaze Naruto, esteemed son of the Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha. On the night that he was born, he slept serenely within his blankets as his father became a hero by defeating the Nine-Tailed Fox, unaware that he was enjoying the last bit of peace that he would know in his life.

Growing up, he was a stubborn and naive child who aspired to do everything except what was expected of him and believed that the world revolved around him. His tutors, especially poor Ebisu, despaired of the boy, who had held enormous promise but was unwilling to spend it on anything except playing pranks and read Icha-Icha Paradise books.

Naruto didn't really hate studying. All he despised was the title of Hokage. The villagers idolized his father, the Hero of Konoha, and they all expected Naruto to become Hokage after his father. Fame became a deterrant for the young boy, who yearned to be known for who he was, not who his father was.

All Naruto realy wanted was to be a jounin sensei and spend time around the children, but nobody would let him. Nobody expected the bright young heir to go missing-nin soon after he graduated from the academy.

* * *

2. Uchiha Sasuke never really knew his clan. However, he still remembers faintly the proud red-and-white fan that emblazoned the buildings of the Uchiha compound before it decayed into a decrepit skeleton of its former self. He only partially remembers his older brother Itachi, who betrayed his clan and Uchiha Madara because of his loyalty to the Hokage and was promptly assassinated shortly after.

The only vestige of the once-proud clan, he was tormented due to his heritage for the rest of his life. Despite this, the boy could not figure out why he was hated so. He grew up bitter and jaded, abused and shunned by those around him. Enrolling in the ninja academy only due to the request of the Yondaime Hokage, he found a new purpose in his life that awakened his dormant inbred genius.

Though the friendly Hokage supported him, Sasuke constantly lived in a state of poverty. His growing body never quite recieved enough nourishment from his rationings, and instant noodles weren't enough. However, he would graduate and apprentice under the Hokage himself in the absence of his son, who had been the closest thing he had had to a friend.

He would only find out many years later the real reason that the Yondaime agreed to train him: the strange spiral-shaped tattoo on his stomach.

* * *

3. Haruno Sakura was born as the heir to the most esteemed ninja clan in Konoha after the Namikazes. The Haruno clan was famed for their extreme beauty and their talent with wind and water manipulation as well as their heavily guarded kekkei genkai.

A shy and studious girl by nature, Sakura was taught at a young age to always do what she was told, and she did just that. She grew into proud and fiercely beautiful kunoichi with a razor-sharp mind.

However talented she was, she had grown up in an sanitated environment. Sakura had no concept of life outside the clan mansion, and little understanding of friendship or love. It was only after she met Uchiha Sasuke and Yamanaka Ino that she finally discovered that she was as human as anybody else.

* * *

4. Hyuuga Hinata was still proud of her clan, even if no one else was. The Hyuuga clan fell out of power long before she had been born, though some still lived and tried to send their children to the ninja academy. However, the ones that didn't drop out never made it past genin, and even those were buried under the disgrace of the Hyuuga name and the crimes of the past.

Her father was officially the clan head, but he fell deep into depression her mother's death and never quite came to his senses, preferring to spend his days drunk. Her cousin Neji had recently been thrown in prison after trying to abandon the village.

However sorry their state, Hinata was an obedient daughter, always willing to do what was best for her family. She and her sister Hanabi spent their childhood working menial labor to pay for their tuition and their father's drinking.

Despite her situation, Hinata was an incorrigable dreamer. Knowing the powerlessness of being weak all her life, she vowed to become more than just a 'dirty Hyuuga'. She promised herself that she would cast off the disgrace that her family's name carried and build a new clan.

Hinata never got the chance to shrink back or be weak. A lifetime of dealing with life's harshnesses had honed her will into iron, and she would become a kunoichi that inspired generations to come.

* * *

5. Kiba was a sickly child. He had been diagnosed with a terminal illness not long after he was born. His family, though they were moderatly wealthy merchants, had no way of curing him. The doctor said that he would not live to be twenty.

His parents spoiled him badly, giving him everything they could possibly give. Kiba himself became very selfish, unable to obtain what he really wanted and unsatisfied with what he had. He constantly threw tantrums throughout his youth because he felt like that was the only way that he could express the fear and frustration in his heart.

Kiba's closest companion was a small white puppy that his sister, Tsume, had bought for him when he had gone through a particularly difficult stage in his illness. The boy had been delighted, and it was immensly comforting to his family how their sickly son had found at least a little bit of happiness in his short life.

Though he knew that it was an impossible dream, Kiba always wanted to be a ninja. He saw them proudly marching beside their respective Kage and his heart gave a jump every time he spotted them leaping from rooftop to rooftop from his bedroom window. Kiba wished that he were that strong and cool, and that he would be able to do all the things he had ever wanted to do.

Only after watching a poor chuunin die on the operating table on a chance visit to the hospital did Kiba begin to understand that a ninja's life was possibly even more doomed than his own.

* * *

6. Shino grew up as the number one village heartthrob. Girls swooned when they beheld his lustrous brown locks and alabaster skin, and his ever-present sunglasses were constantly a topic of local gossip. 'He was so dark and mysterious,' they thought, 'What kind of inhumanly beautiful eyes could he be hiding under those glasses?'

In truth, Shino's eyes were just incredibly sensitive to the light, and he was a very shy boy who always preferred to stay in the shadows. His clan traditionally signed summon contracts with insects and bats, and they kept to themselves and lived in the dark. That didn't stop the village from fantasizing about the Aburame clan and their vampiric complexions.

The Aburame clan were one of the founding clans of Konoha, and thus were very involved in village politics. They had extremely tight traditions and had high expectations for their children, and Shino was no exception. He was top genin of their year and was fully expected to make jounin by the time he was seventeen. Shino wisely kept his own secretly seething thoughts to himself.

Forming a curious friendship with Akimichi Chouji, who also had unwanted popularity, Shino learned that it was okay to come out of the dark and embrace the light sometimes.

* * *

7. Ino wanted to be more than was expected of her. Her parents were of middle-class origins, and they ran a flower shop that had been there ever since the founding of Konoha.

Ino herself, however, was disgusted with her parents' contentment at being merely average. She was a headstrong girl with too much stubborness and too much potential to even think to waste her life away managing a tiny flower shop.

Ino's parents despaired of their only daughter's fierce will. She wanted to be a ninja, the proud troops of Konoha and the most respected social class, higher even than some daimyos. They were terrified of what would happen to their baby; a ninja's life was short and brutal, and one was not usually expected to live to be more than thirty.

Ino, however, wanted to be strong more than anything in the world. She wanted it badly enough to chop off her long white-blond locks and run away from home to enroll in the academy, where she graduated after living by herself for several years, cut off from her parents.

Put into a three-man team with Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, Ino was able to finally find the strength within her heart to forgive her parents and face them again.

* * *

8. Shikamaru never had a chance to be lazy. The oldest son of a family of middle-class merchants, his family enjoyed many years of prosperity before the invasion of the Nine-Tailed-Fox put a lockdown on Konoha and the economy took a turn for the worst. Shikamaru himself learned to count by using the abacus to calculate the living expenses of his family.

It quickly became obvious that the boy had talents that were destined for greater heights, but the struggling family could not spare the time or money to send him to school. Shikamaru became the glue holding the family together; he often substituted during business transactions in order to let his exhausted parents rest, and became the mother to his siblings.

Shikamaru was disgusted by the laud that the Yondaime Hokage's name beheld. He grew up hating the shinobi, blaming them for his family's financial troubles. He especially despised the lazy chuunin on watch, who had enough time to just sit back and watch the clouds while he never had a day's rest in his life.

His childhood friend Yamanaka Ino abandoned her family be a ninja, and he lost contact with her for many years. When he finally saw her again, she was a genin fresh out of the academy, lounging on the bridge with her two teammates. He doesn't want to admit it, but just for a moment, he wished he could be there with her.

* * *

9. Chouji was everybody's friend, and yet he wasn't. His mother was a noble from Snow Country, and his father was a very successful movie star from Lightning Country. By the time he turned three, he had been to most of the countries in the shinobi continent and met more celebrities than anybody was apt to meet in their lifetime.

When he was five, his parents divorced and he went with his father to go live in Konoha because of his connections to the late Sandaime Hokage. The boy grew up in the hands of numerous nannies until his father sent him to the ninja academy for formal schooling, not knowing how to take care of his own child.

Chouji was an adorable child. He did not yet have the rugged good looks of his father, but his open friendliness and fame attracted friends like bees to honey. His hidden talent, inherited from his mother's side of the family, boosted his already skyrocketting popularity. He was a sensitive boy, however, and the backlash of too much fame gradually had an impact on him.

At the time of his graduation, his fangirls numbered nearly as many as Aburame Shino's. Chouji didn't care, withdrawing into himself and wishing that he could have just one true-blue friend who would stand by him not because he was cute and popular but because they cared about him.

He was placed on the same genin team as Shino and the two became tentative friends, as both were very shy and hadn't wanted attention showered on them in the first place. However, the loyal quality of the shinobi became a hidden blessing to the boy who finally had somewhere to place his trust.

* * *

Author's notes: (yes, there are more of them)

- Just because Naruto went missing-nin doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. I imagine that he might very well go and build his own hidden village. He's a smart boy, after all. And it's not like he has a kekkei genkai, so I don't think Orochimaru would go after him. Hey, maybe he met Jiraiya out there!

- As to why the Yondaime is still alive after defeating the Nine-Tailed Fox, um... seeing as how the Sandaime is dead here, I image that somehow the two Hokages worked together and Yondaime survived. I think?

- I never really thought about the kekkei genkai of the Haruno clan, so I can't tell you what it is. Use your imaginations.

- For those who know what I'm talking about, I made it so that the Hyuuga clan was the one who was involved with the Shodaime at the time of the founding of Konoha. Something happened, the ploy was discovered, and they were disgraced. The Uchiha, who grasped the same concept, schemed to overthrow the Hokage (this is completely canon, by the way), but this time Itachi was aware of it much earlier and went to the council about it. Thus, why the Uchiha are disgraced also. As to why Itachi's dead... they got lucky? They are a family of prodigies, after all. Maybe Shusui was really mad. Or maybe Madara was.

Format based on the format of Aishuu's 'It Takes a Village', which was part of the inspiration for this fic. I love that fic to death.

Sorry if some of these seem a little bit pointless. I lost my inspiration on some and found it on others. I am hoping that you guys get more out of it than I am right now, because I have been working on this for a month and I am finally done with it. Sorry also about the messiness. I think I took too much liberty with the characters, so please don't kill me.

Please read and review! I know that this is crap-quality writing, but at least post your thoughts, be they good or bad!


	2. Naruto

Role Reversal

By BlackFeatherz29

Chapter 2: Naruto

So... I've decided to continue this story. I just like it way too much for my own good and would like to elaborate more on my original takes. I'd like more readers to come in contact with this because I've really put my soul in this.

I've never been a big fan of the actual character of Naruto, unlike many of you on this site. The first time I ever really began to appreciate Naruto's unique presence and how central his role was in the story was when I read one specific fanfic: The Reflection of Oneself, by The White Wanderer. Only then did I actually start liking Naruto the character.

Minato, on the other hand... he isn't the god that everyone makes him out to be. If he were alive, he still wouldn't be perfect. Just as the Sandaime had his imperfections, so does the Yondaime. The only reason that people make him perfect is because he's dead and they can do anything they want to his character. He's a really good guy; I just want to write him realistically. A leader in power always faces trials, and even the greatest men can make mistakes.

PS: The first scene is inspired by the new Star Trek movie. Good movie, that is.

Disclaimer: The characters and the general universe are mine alone, but this story and my takes on said characters are mine.

* * *

1. Naruto was born Namikaze Naruto, esteemed son of the Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha. On the night that he was born, he slept serenely within his blankets as his father became a hero by defeating the Nine-Tailed Fox, unaware that he was enjoying the last bit of peace that he would know in his life.

Growing up, he was a stubborn and naive child who aspired to do everything except what was expected of him and believed that the world revolved around him. His tutors, especially poor Ebisu, despaired of the boy, who had held enormous promise but was unwilling to spend it on anything except playing pranks and read Icha-Icha Paradise books.

Naruto didn't really hate studying. All he despised was the title of Hokage. The villagers idolized his father, the Hero of Konoha, and they all expected Naruto to become Hokage after his father. Fame became a deterrent for the young boy, who yearned to be known for who he was, not who his father was.

All Naruto really wanted was to be a jounin sensei and spend time around the children, but nobody would let him. Nobody expected the bright young heir to go missing-nin soon after he graduated from the academy.

Many that night thought that the world was ending. The skies rained burning sulfur, and the earth crumbled like cheap bricks of soap. The air was filled with blackened dust and splinters. The bodies of dead nin lay every which way, twisted like rag dolls and never to move again.

* * *

Deep in the protective cellars of the Hokage Tower, a woman gasped in the throes of labor. Uzumaki Kushina clutched her two most precious belongings in her small hands; a weathered walkie-talkie and her own swollen belly. Her head lolled on the makeshift blankets, brilliant red hair matted with sweat and falling around her like a living blanket.

They could only spare one medic-nin at the special request of the Hokage; the flustered nin could only urge Kushina to push as she writhed in agony. Her grip on the small machine, however, was iron.

A tinny voice issued from the speaker. "Honey, do you hear me?"

Kushina let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Minato! I'm here, you idiot."

A warm chuckle came from the device even as distant explosions sounded behind the speaker. "I'm glad, too." A pause, then a loud screeching roar. "Listen, honey. I might not make it back tonight. We've just about run out of options, and there might not be a way for us to defeat it without—"

She bared her teeth in the speaker's face, her expression fierce even as another contraction ripped through her. "'Listen, honey?' You even think of sacrificing yourself to the village, you are never welcome back into my house even as a ghost; you hear me?"

He smiled through the dust and grime on the other end of the line, thankful for his wife's fire. "I hear you. I promise you that I won't sacrifice myself to the village if I don't see the need to."

Kushina huffed impatiently. "You'd better. And for your information, smart guy, you still haven't decided on a name for our baby. He's very impatient, you know. He's just dying to get out, and you still haven't busted your lazy ass and thought of a damn name yet!"

Another explosion boomed through Minato's end, and she gripped the walkie-talkie a little tighter. Only her husband's laughter on the other line a second later reassured her enough to keep from squeezing it to pieces.

"Why such a hurry? We'll have time to think of a name after tonight. You know, since I promised you that I'd come back and all…"

She smiled and sniffed loudly, biting back a groan of pain as another contraction came. "Touché, dumbass. Make sure you come back to me. Otherwise, I might name him after my great-grandfather. You know, 'Akemi'?"

"Akemi? No self-respecting male would ever want a girly name like that!" A pause. "Tell you what, let's name him Naruto."

Kushina was outraged at her husband for even considering the farcical name that he and Jiraiya had come up with, but a cry of pain prevented her from answering. Her baby was coming.

"Okay, fine," she gasped, head swimming. "If you promise me that you'll come back to me alive and in one piece, we'll name him Naruto no matter how stupid I think it sounds."

The screeching roar was coming closer in Minato's end. "As you wish, honey. Wish me good luck. And make sure that you know that I love you and our baby no matter what happens to me." The commlink switched off, and Kushina pushed her despair aside to focus on her baby.

"Push!" came the command from the ragged medic-nin, and she gritted her teeth. Naruto… hopefully he wouldn't get teased too much by the other children.

The dawn had come on Konohagakure's long struggle. The dust had settled, and the smell of sulfur did not linger in the air as it had done the night before. The explosions had ceased, and wary survivors had begun creeping out of their underground shelters.

What they saw would be forever emblazoned in Konoha's history from then onward. On top of the Hokage mountain stood a tall figure, silhouetted by the sun's early rays. The Yondaime Hokage, blonde hair swaying in the faint breeze, stood proudly holding his newborn son in his arms.

The baby, sleeping peacefully, was swathed in his father's bloody cloak. And as Minato raised him slowly, the baby opened bleary eyes to gaze down at the city below. As newborn children are wont to do, he decided that the view was not worth staying awake to and fell back asleep.

The people, however, would forever remember the tiny child held up in the arms of their leader, a symbol of the triumph of the village against the evils of the Nine-Tailed Fox. It was a historical moment in the village.

It was also the beginning of young Namikaze Naruto's troubles in life.

* * *

Naruto's early youth was blessed with ignorance.

He was a boisterous child, always active and always causing some sort of mischief. It had become a common sight in the village to see the frazzled Ebisu chasing the blond child through the streets of Konoha, waving some sort of textbook in the air and begging 'young master' to come back.

Nevertheless, Naruto was an exceptionally bright child when he chose to be. He listened with rapt attention when he was interested and drooled on the desk when he was not. He was fascinated with the shinobi arts and idolized his father, the great Yondaime Hokage, often telling him that he was going to grow up to be just like him.

Minato was no longer the bright young genius who had taken office shortly before the attack by the Nine-Tailed Fox. By this time he had become much more jaded and haggard by the strain of the massive recession that Konoha's economy was experiencing. He welcomed the little ray of sunshine that was so reminiscent of his late wife's spirit. Kushina had died shortly after Naruto's birth, weakened by the blood loss. He had only had a brief chance to say good-bye through the speaker that she had still been clutching in her hand.

Tied up in diplomatic negotiations and trying to recover the damaged economy amid wide criticism, Minato had little time for his son during his workdays. However, he did join his old sensei and Naruto in having ramen at the Ichiraku Ramen Stand every Friday night for dinner. There, Naruto would regale him with stories about what he had learned that week and how he was going to be the best Hokage ever.

Minato would feel refreshed then, ruffling his son's bright blond hair, glad that at least one soul in the village still believed in him as Hokage.

* * *

When he started at the Academy, Naruto began to notice little things he had not noticed before. His friends, who were many, did not wear the same rich clothes he wore. Their houses were always a little worse for the wear than his. And every so often, a classmate would quietly drop out from school and he would never see him or her again. These things puzzled him.

On his ventures out into the village, which were becoming ever more complex to keep from being discovered by Ebisu, Naruto became exposed to the darker side of Konoha. There were many homeless people, driven from their homes because of the enormous recession. There were the dirty orphanages, which housed the children without parents or whose parents were too poor even to pay for their children's meals. And then there were the hospitals, where world-weary shinobi sat in their hospital beds gazing sightlessly out of the window, trapped in a world of horrible memories.

Naruto was shocked at these things. Growing up shielded from the world, he had no real concept of suffering in the world that could not be alleviated by the all-reaching power of the Hokage. Befriending these people and listening to their life stories, his solid belief in his father wavered.

He took to shooting punctuating questions to Ebisu during their tutoring sessions, growing more impatient every time the bespectacled nin avoided them. Naruto grew more and more frustrated with figures he had grown up around, angry that they would not tell him what he wanted to know.

He couldn't figure it out. If his father was the Hokage and the Hokage was the most powerful shinobi in the village, why couldn't the Hokage fix these things? Why did people have to live in dirty cardboard shacks along the road rather than decent houses? Why where there children who had to worry about where their next meal would come from when there were also children who ate three square meals every day without giving a thought to where that came from?

Minato could not give an answer to his son when he came dashing up to his office, accusation in his eyes. What could he have done? So he told his son the only thing he could have told him: that sometimes there are situations in which the Hokage can't control no matter how much he wants to, and that it was just the way it is.

His heart died a little inside as he watched his son fly from the room, stinging tears in his blue eyes.

* * *

As Naruto approached graduation from the Academy, he grew more and more rebellious and uncontrollable. His tutor Ebisu, who once had such high hopes for him, found his patience wearing thin. His constant despairing lectures on how on earth could the young master squander all his time on such disgusting activities and how could he ever aspire to one day become Hokage made the boy more brooding and angry.

Naruto, who was once top of his class, was now stuck firmly in the middle, unwilling to do more work than it took to barely pass his courses. His teachers were pulling their hair out. He had so much potential, but he would not use it.

One thing that he still excelled at was communication. Blessed with strong charisma, Naruto surrounded himself with friends and dedicated himself to their wellbeing. Particularly close to him was the village pariah, Uchiha Sasuke, whom he spent all his available time with. The elders screamed bloody murder at this, horrified that their golden child spent so much time with the filthy offspring of the demon.

Minato, too, became estranged from his son. He still met up with him for ramen at Ichiraku's, but their dynamic was no longer as strong as it used to be. Naruto had confided in him on a rare occasion that he wanted to be a jounin sensei or a teacher at the Academy, to which Minato had expressed initial shock. What had happened to the sky-high dreams that Naruto had had when he was younger? Minato wished a second later that he could take that moment back at the shadowed look in his son's eyes. Naruto never confided in him again.

Whether it was smoking cigarettes, reading Icha Icha Paradise books, or pulling elaborate pranks, Naruto was uncontrollable. Nothing that Minato or Ebisu could threaten him with was enough to make him stop sneaking out from his room.

The night before graduation, Minato had finally cornered his son and demanded to know the reason behind his behavior. Naruto reacted like a caged beast. "Why do I have to be Hokage?" he had howled. "Why bother? Hokages don't have any power! Why can't I just stay and teach or something? At least that's way more honorable than starting stupid wars and sending my precious people out to die!"

Toward the end, Naruto had threatened to run away from the village. Minato, in the heat of the moment, had thrown the threat away as just another bid for attention.

The day of graduation, Naruto showed up for his test but failed it on purpose with great aplomb. Then, he disappeared. Not one trace of the boy could be found.

In despair, Minato sent the ANBU to search fruitlessly for his missing son while wondering how he had gone so wrong. In the end, Minato took up an apprentice in the closest replacement that he could find: Uchiha Sasuke, the boy who had been his son's best friend. After all, he was the one at fault this time too, and he had no intention on messing up again.

* * *

Well, how was it? I must say that although I did write this fairly quickly, I can't say that I'll be able to do the same with the other chapters. Reviews, comments? Anything is welcome.

Next up: Sasuke. My favorite chapter, probably. I shall think long and hard on this one.

Ending Theme: All Good Things (Come to An End) by Nelly Furtado.


	3. Sasuke part 1

Role Reversal

By BlackFeatherz29

Chapter 2: Sasuke (part 1)

So... I've been working on this chapter like a mad(wo)man, and I'm finally tired of dragging this out and thus I have split it into two parts. Wark. At current prediction, the entire section on Sasuke in this fic will turn out to be about 6000-7000 words, so I'm going to go ahead and post the first 4000 that I have already completed. I feel it is cruel keeping people from seeing what I've been working on for so long, so thus I present this to you early.

Sasuke is and always will be my favorite character in the Naruto series, no matter how much Kishimoto flanderizes his character to epic proportions. This is probably why his section is so long and so extremely crucial to my alternate universe. Do read carefully and appreciate the time and effort I have put into this, because I have scattered so many little cues about the specific events that I have changed in the Naruto timeline, which have reduced my psyche to a quivering blob, with all the repercussions that I could possibly have perceived. Too much Star Trek; aye, there's the rub.

Disclaimer: The characters and the general universe are mine alone, but this story and my takes on said characters are mine.

* * *

2. Uchiha Sasuke never really knew his clan. However, he still remembers faintly the proud red-and-white fan that emblazoned the buildings of the Uchiha compound before it decayed into a decrepit skeleton of its former self. He only partially remembers his older brother Itachi, who betrayed his clan and Uchiha Madara because of his loyalty to the Hokage and was promptly assassinated shortly after.

The only vestige of the once-proud clan, he was tormented due to his heritage for the rest of his life. Despite this, the boy could not figure out why he was hated so. He grew up bitter and jaded, abused and shunned by those around him. Enrolling in the ninja academy only due to the request of the Yondaime Hokage, he found a new purpose in his life that awakened his dormant inbred genius.

Though the friendly Hokage supported him, Sasuke constantly lived in a state of poverty. His growing body never quite received enough nourishment from his rationings, and instant noodles weren't enough. However, he would graduate and apprentice under the Hokage himself in the absence of his son, who had been the closest thing he had had to a friend.

He would only find out many years later the real reason that the Yondaime agreed to train him: the strange spiral-shaped tattoo on his stomach.

* * *

They said that it all started with the attack on Konoha by the Kyuubi. But in truth, the stone began rolling two days prior to that fateful attack with the birth of a baby who had quite a different destiny than our earlier subject. Uchiha Mikoto could not have known, sound asleep and exhausted as she was, that the child whom she had just brought into the world would have such a lasting impact on the village. But her husband, head of the Uchiha clan, did.

Only hours after the baby had been born, the wisp of dark hair upon his head newly dried and downy, was he whisked off to his first audience with the Council and Hokage of Konoha in a secret conference chamber. The meeting was top-secret, with ANBU patrolling at the doorways and seals set into the walls. The entire elderly council, all the clan leaders in the village, and two Hokages (one in office, and one retired) were present, representing all the governing power in the village.

After weeks of patrol regarding the threat that was now barreling toward Konoha, it seemed that there was nothing to do but find a way to destroy it. Early hopes had been that the entity would avoid the village altogether, but they were in vain. The Nine-Tailed Fox was making a beeline for Konoha.

Namikaze Minato, the brilliant young Hokage, had devoted several days to research, barricading himself in the library and wracking his liberal brains for a method to combat the fearsome being that was the demon. His research led him to the dangerous S-class ninjutsu, the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, which would doom the user to eternal battle in the belly of the Shinigami. It is still one of the great mysteries of Konoha how exactly he created from it a method to seal the demon.

But what to seal it in? The Kyuubi had seven times the chakra power of Shukaku, who was just barely able to be sealed inside a blessed teapot by a powerful priest. Most of the other tailed demons had been sealed inside human vessels so the two Hokages and the Council agreed to use this method, but then came the time to make a decision. Who was to be the vessel?

Technically, a demon could be sealed inside the chakra coils of any young child whose coils were not fully developed. The best choice was to find an infant who was born to a shinobi clan while his/her chakra coils were still undeveloped. The Hokage's own son was to be born only two days from that day, and he was fully prepared to offer his son as the vessel. However, the Council had other plans.

Only a few days before, they and the heads of the Uchiha clan had met in the secret chamber below Naka Shrine to discuss the possibility of using the Uchiha Fugaku's second son, who was still an infant and thus perfect for the task at hand. Uchiha Sasuke's bloodline would allow him to further suppress the Kyuubi because of his clan's ancestral ability to control the Fox, and this would allow him to become a potent weapon to the village. It was a win-win scenario, especially if the too-soft Hokage fell during the sealing.

The Council convinced Minato to agree, although he had inhibitions about using another family's child as the vessel. "My family and I swore to protect the village at any cost when I became Hokage", he argued. "I would gladly lay down both my life and my son's life if that's what it takes, and I do not see why the Uchiha clan would have to be exposed to such danger." However, he was outnumbered and forced to change his plans, thus changing the course of history.

Surprisingly, another supporter of using the Uchiha child was the retired Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. The old man, still powerful in his age, would brook no disagreement when he told Minato that he would be the one to seal the demon. "You are young and full of energy", he told his furious successor. "You have what this village needs to get through these treacherous times. You don't need to sacrifice your life to protect your village the best way you can… go back to your child and your wife and live life the way it was meant to be lived, for everyone's sake."

The night that Uchiha Sasuke met with the leaders of the village, the child was washed ceremoniously, wrapped in a blanket, and marked with ink in the sealing pattern, which spread in a spider web of intricate strokes across the chamber's stone floor. He was to be kept in a secret chamber in Hokage Mountain to which the two Hokages could gain easy access when they were ready to seal the demon.

As the time of sealing approached and the Fox wreaked havoc on the village, Namikaze Minato was forced to confront the fact that there was no way to defeat it without using the seal. Just thinking about leaving his old friend and mentor to die tore at his heart in a way that facing death never did. But after making that final goodbye to his beautiful wife, it tore at him more how he knew that he could never leave her and his newborn son alone in the world. He would carry this secret shame throughout his life long after he became honored as the savior of the village.

And so it went. As Sarutobi's long and honorable life ended so did young Uchiha Sasuke's life start in quite a different fashion than that of his future best friend's, who lay in his swaddling clothes while his exhausted mother breathed her last.

And as the victorious Hokage hoisted his son above the village with the rising of the sun, so was the new vessel of the Nine Tails secretly shunted back to the Uchiha compound. Both the council and the clan leaders deigned it necessary for the child to grow up unaware of this secret, believing that he would be easier to control if he was made unaware, and so the law was born. But like any good secret, this one would not stay quiet.

Uchiha Mikoto found this out the hard way when she woke up in a frenzy without her baby by her side. Having been an extremely bright kunoichi, she knew that they had done something to her baby. Her husband skirted the issue, telling her that young Sasuke had received the blessing of the village and that he would grow up to become the greatest weapon that this village would come to know. Piecing together the clues including with the starkly visible seal on her child's stomach was not hard. One night after that fateful attack, she took back her marriage dowry and quietly committed suicide.

Elder son Itachi had been held for safekeeping along with all the Academy students in an underground shelter. Arriving home in the middle of the frenzied news that his mother had just died, the 4-year-old budding genius did not immediately comprehend the scale of the situation in his grief and confusion.

What could have made his strong, beautiful mother take her own life? The atmosphere was not right, either. Somehow, the mood within the Uchiha compound was tense and chilly, and Mikoto's death just seemed to concentrate the negativity. There should have been jubilation; the second son of the Uchiha clan leader had just been born, and the village had just survived the Kyuubi's attack. So why wasn't there?

None of the clan leaders or his father would tell young Itachi anything, and the arrival of a messenger nin to formally proclaim that not one member of the clan was allowed, on pain of death, to speak of what had transpired during the Kyuubi attack, just confused him more.

However, one thing was certain: Sasuke was somehow the source. None of the clan members wanted to even set foot in the same room where he lay. They would just glance fearfully at him, as if he were some sort of abomination. This mystery would plague Itachi for years.

* * *

In the meantime, however, Itachi gazed upon his baby brother, unable to discern why this innocent babe could strike such fear into the hearts of others.

Young Uchiha Sasuke grew up under the watchful eyes of both his father and his brother. He was almost never permitted to leave the central housing complex and never permitted to leave the Uchiha compound at all. Private tutors surrounded him day and night, nurturing his natural genius and above all, making sure that he was never out of sight.

Sasuke himself grew to be a cheerful boy who read entirely too much and was eager to learn, if a bit too earnest. His greatest joy was fulfilling the expectations of his brother and his father, although the latter was not often available. Although most members of the clan still scorned him, little Sasuke had no idea that there was anything different between them and him.

Itachi, in lieu of their mother's absence from their lives, took care of his brother's needs as best he could while flying through the shinobi ranks. As chuunin, Itachi had many more responsibilities, but he always made sure to spend as much time as he could with Sasuke. Whether it was tips for shuriken-throwing or the request for a new bedtime story, Itachi doted excessively on his baby brother, knowing full well that this was to be the happiest time in his life, and that he would never possess this innocence again.

Finally gaining enough clearance to learn of the existence of the law forbidding anybody to discuss the true fate of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Itachi developed a lasting resentment for the darker dealings of his clan that was never fully resolved. He researched deep into the history of Konoha, of the rivalry between the Uchiha and the Senju clans, and of the clash that followed. The more he read, the more wrong everything seemed. Was this really the same clan that he had once been so proud to be a part of?

Intent on discovering the secrets that lay hidden from him, Itachi sought his father's permission (which he was only too happy to give) shortly after he gained his Mangekyo Sharingan and became included in the Uchiha inner circle, joining the elders in the secret meetings that occurred under Naka Shrine.

The first time that he saw a long-lost figure from the bowels of Konoha's history proclaiming that the village needed to be wiped out, Itachi knew something monumental was going to happen.

He knew that he was committing the ultimate treason to his clan when he went to the Hokage and council and told them of what he knew, but at this point he was past caring. So when Danzo and the Council demanded that this clan of treasonous dissenters be wiped out, Itachi didn't object as much as he might have.

The night that the Uchiha massacre occurred, little 4-year old Sasuke had absolutely no idea what had just transpired. In fact, he was entirely absorbed in reading a book about lightning jutsu and was being watched over by Itachi's Kage Buushin. He is told the next morning that his father as well as the entire Uchiha clan was gone from his life, which saddened him, but the notion that he will be able to go outside its gates now perked him up in a way that only children can comprehend.

For the time being, Itachi rented a small but comfortable apartment with the sizable chunk of inheritance that he has from the Uchiha clan funds (as well as his pay from the council for the mission that he just completed) and took his baby brother to live with him. Itachi traversed the streets of Konoha with Sasuke hand in hand, glaring daggers at anybody who dared to glance fearfully at his completely oblivious brother. They lived this way, Itachi tutoring little Sasuke (who read so much that he hardly needed a teacher anyway) while going on his missions sparingly. Hokage-sama was more than happy to oblige.

This happy time would come to an end soon after Itachi made ANBU. Sasuke was now six years old and already an accomplished little shinobi-in-training, with all sorts of jutsu theories tucked in his head but with his chakra still underdeveloped. Usually he consulted Itachi on the practical usage although it frustrated him that he couldn't use any of the techniques yet.

However, one night Itachi simply didn't come home. Sasuke was immediately aware that something might have gone wrong because his brother never went away on a mission without telling him how long it was going to be, and Itachi always came back on time because he was an awesome ninja like that. This time, Itachi had disappeared without a trace; it couldn't have been a mission. Although Sasuke was worried about his brother, fear of the village kept him from seeking outside help. Itachi always warned him that the villagers were not to be trusted and that he should ignore any negativity that came from them, but Sasuke couldn't figure out why. It was this unfound but ultimately petrifying fear that kept the little boy cooped up in his dark apartment for an entire day, terrified that something horrible would happen if he tried to go outside by himself.

Finally, Sasuke couldn't take it anymore. What if his brother needed him? What if nobody knew that he was gone and going to Hokage-sama was the only way? This other, more vivid fear drove him outside, where he ran as fast as his short legs could with his head down the entire time.

Meeting Yondaime Hokage for the first time, Sasuke couldn't understand how anybody could dislike the man. He liked the Hokage's sunny blond hair, his warm blue eyes, and his easy smile. He made Sasuke sit down and drink hot tea before Sasuke told him what was the matter. After he spoke, the Hokage frowned a little and said that he was just made aware by Itachi's captain that he had been missing for a day now. Then, he raised a large warm hand, ruffled little Sasuke's hair in a fatherly way, and said that he was most definitely going to find out what had happened and that Sasuke should leave everything up to him.

Sasuke latched firmly onto the Hokage's reassurances, trusting absolutely in the holy word of the most powerful shinobi in the village. After all, if anybody could make everything better, it was the Hokage.

In the meantime, Sasuke was told to stay at home and was assigned two mysterious masked ANBU guards, whom he liked to call Nyan-Nyan and Kero-Kero, for their animal masks (which were supposed to make him scared but didn't because Itachi's mask always made him feel safe no matter how scary it looked). The days go by anxiously, but Sasuke wasn't so frightened. He was counting on two of the most dependable people to walk the earth: his brother Itachi, who was so strong that nobody could beat him, and Yondaime, who was even stronger. What could go wrong?

It's not until several weeks later that he finally received news about his brother's whereabouts. This time, there are no miracles for him. One of the masked ANBU, who also was anxious for news for his fellow ANBU operative, gave Sasuke the news in clipped professional tones. Itachi had been found hundreds of miles away, deep in the mouth of a cave near Grass Country. His body bore signs of an obvious struggle and was heavily marked with wounds and burns, the rock around him scoured with flame.

With no guardian to look after him, six-year-old Sasuke was sent to live in an orphanage, but as soon as he arrives, there erupts showers of scandalous whispers about him. As expected, the law forbidding discussion about the Kyuubi has had little to no effect on the townspeople, and the simmering mistrust from years of repression has finally come to a boil. Sasuke was no longer the golden Uchiha boy; all he is now, in the eyes of everyone around him, is a snake-tongued, lying orphan who hides a monster behind that angelic face and most probably murdered his entire clan and his older brother out of some sick sense of retribution. Reactions to the small dark-haired boy range from pure disgust to hot hatred to an overwhelming fear that the little demon would come in the dead of night and murder them in their beds.

In orphanage, however, there was only one response. Sasuke was ignored by the caretakers, who saw him as a selfish little gremlin sucking their business and their food storages dry. Although he was never abused for fear of the Hokage's retribution, he was neglected and frequently locked in his room. Other children shied away from him; a few were initially nice to him but are then swiftly punished for fraternizing with him and soon grasp the idea that they shouldn't try to associate with him anymore.

The boy is confused and hurt. 'Why doesn't anybody like me?' he asks, unable to comprehend why nobody would talk to him. His nature tells him that he's done something unforgivable and that he is being punished for it, but for the life of him he can't figure out what that would be. The first few times, he is bewildered and frightened, but then he learns to obey while breeding a growing resentment in him. He is an obedient child, after all.

Soon, Sasuke spent all of his days inside the dark room, quietly reciting memorized passages from long-abandoned textbooks he used to own and tracing chakra pathways in the dark with his finger, all the while glaring at the locked door and wishing all the pains of the world upon the cruel matron and her colleagues. If he was lucky, she would remember to shove a plate of leftovers into his cell, but most of the time he does not enjoy that luxury. In hunger, he became an expert lock-picker and frequently snuck out in the dead of night to steal food from the kitchen as well as nearby houses. Finally, one night after a particularly successful food raid, he simply decided not to go back. 'The outside world must surely be better than what is in there,' he thought. How wrong he was.

* * *

Somehow, Sasuke made it through a couple months on the street without perishing. He was a budding genius, after all, and learned street smarts quickly for one who used to be so accustomed to noble life. The time spent living on the streets changed him fundamentally. Just summoning the energy to simply go on living was an ordeal by itself. At least in the orphanage he had a roof over his head at the orphanage, his thoughts often reminded him. But he's a stubborn child; his pride won't allow him to go dragging his head back to where he had faced so much humiliation.

Gone was the child who reacted with bewilderment to the treatment shown to him. Instead a hardened survivor settled into his old skin. Sasuke grew to accept everyone's hatred toward him; he had long since given up on understanding why they hated him so. Monster, they saw him as? He would show them monster. Acting his part as the spitting wolf-child worked wonderfully in frightening them into submission; it wasn't as if he had any dignity left to lose.

More often than not, Sasuke sought sanctuary in the old Uchiha district where nobody else would dare to go. Sometimes, he would wander at night through the abandoned streets, wishing that it was filled with people like it once was even though he couldn't remember ever having any proper interaction with any members of the clan. At night, though, he sometimes blearily would wonder why, why, why this was happening to him while hunger pangs stabbed at his empty stomach and the dirty feeling of self-loathing crawled across his skin, revisited by pinpricks of memories that teased him fleetingly as they streamed by at a speed too fast to really comprehend.

Meanwhile, it took the Hokage and his associates weeks to even realize that Sasuke was missing from the orphanage. The caretaker in charge of delivering meals to the slotted door had only noticed that its sole occupant was not present when the smell of rotting food became overpowering and she had no choice but to unlock it to see why the boy was not eating. When said boy proved absent, the caretaker and the head matron had decided to fake reports out to the Hokage as if he was still there. Needless to say, this incident was not officially reported until somebody else actually checked to see if he was still there.

They found him malnourished, filthy, and furious in the Uchiha compound. The ANBU had no choice but to restrain him when he lunged at them in a whirlwind of dirty fists and incoherent screaming. At the hospital, where the doctors treated him for severe malnutrition, parasites, and accumulated injuries from numerous beatings that he sustained from small crime sprees as well as failed assassination attempts, sedation was required to keep the distraught boy from injuring himself further. Sasuke spent two months at the hospital recovering physically, and was often visited by the Hokage during that time.

However, none of Minato's efforts to get close to him made the slightest difference. The wide-eyed youngster that he once knew was gone to be replaced by a cynical, feral child who glowered silently at him with an expression too full of hatred for one so young. The only time that Sasuke spoke to the Hokage was to demand answers that Minato could not give. Minato tried his best to, but the law forbid him from speaking of this matter (which is all very well considering how mentally unstable the boy's psyche currently was).

This fruitless exchange cemented in Sasuke a lasting abhorrence of liars and an undisguised sense of mistrust that would color his perceptions for the rest of his life.

* * *

I will post the second section of this as soon as I finish with it, which (hopefully) will be in about two weeks. I have already mapped out every major plot point I need to address, and now what remains is to flesh it all out. After that, it's back to the drawing board with Sakura, who I have a special fondness for and will most definitely not be bashing.

Also, for you English-language detail sticklers, I'm terribly sorry to jump around with the tenses. I have a natural tendency to use present tense, but as this is the past... I feel obliged to use mostly past tense. See now, I had to go back to edit what I just wrote because of tenses! Damn them.

Ending song : World So Cold, by 12 Stones.

EDIT: Changed a couple things. You know the ones (who asked me about them).


	4. Sasuke part 2

Role Reversal

By BlackFeatherz29

Chapter 4: Sasuke (part 2)

It's been a long time since I've worked on this story, but I do want to finish it eventually; eventually being a relative term. Currently on summer vacation, with my first year of college looming in the horizon. Can't say if I'll have more or less time to write or how inspiration will strike. Shucks.

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me; Kishi owns everything even though he should be layering more love on his own damn characters.

* * *

As a sort of peace offering and because there was no other viable option, Yondaime gives Sasuke his own cramped apartment (provided that he agrees to have ANBU guards patrolling the area for safeguarding) as well as weekly allowances and supplements. He also enrolls the boy at the Academy despite his lateness and the social stigma attached to his name, in hopes of making something of him yet. The first day of schooling is spectacularly awful, as he had been baited by several cocky students into a fistfight before lunch had even started, but he quickly catches up to the rest of the class and learns how to not attract as much hostile attention despite his ever-present bitterness and anger.

It is here that he meets Namikaze Naruto, whom Sasuke never liked simply because everybody liked him. It figured that he was son of that idiot Hokage who always acted like he was some sort of almighty father figure. They had the same twinkling blue eyes, the same moronic grin, and the same stupid hero mentality. He often wondered why the short blond boy didn't just bugger off when he tried to ignore him or drive him away with barbed words. Unlike his father, Naruto just couldn't take a hint.

They became constant companions, though Sasuke never uses the word 'friend' to describe Naruto because he just couldn't reconcile this foreign concept with himself. No, they were companions, and on occasion they were partners when prank-related mayhem was concerned. That was all, or so he told himself.

Whenever the loud arrogant blond is forced by his honorable father to stay home, Sasuke has to admit that he misses his company. At the very least, Naruto isn't a pretender. Even though he is terribly naïve and too emotional for his own good, he's the real deal. Sasuke hates liars the most. That's why he hates the Hokage, who promises him that it's all going to be okay, but it never is.

When graduation rolls around, Sasuke is assigned to Team Seven with Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura, with Kakashi as his jounin sensei. As for Naruto, he finds out what happened the next morning when alarm bells sound throughout the village, alerting everyone that the Golden Son has gone missing-nin.

Somehow, Sasuke isn't as surprised at that as he should be, having seen Naruto's face the day before, livid and hurting in more ways that he had ever shown. But what does shock him he is when one of the Hokage's personal ANBU delivers a summons to go see the Yondaime Hokage a few days later. After enduring many suspicious glances on his journey up to the Hokage's office, he discovers that Minato wants to take him on as a personal apprentice.

Sasuke refuses immediately, disgusted with the Hokage's blatant attempt at redemption when it would do him no good. It was one thing to lie to the village pariah, but it was something altogether different to lie to your own son. Nevertheless, the little bit of humanity left in Sasuke can't help but bend to the poor man's grief and he finally relents. He is dubious, but placates himself by thinking that he can grow stronger this way, that power will solve his problems.

The council is understandably furious, but the Yondaime tunes them out for the first time since his youth.

* * *

Sasuke and his teammates are completely dysfunctional, so dysfunctional that the team failed Kakashi's training exercise within minutes and only redeemed itself by a completely random occurrence. Not one of them likes each other: Sasuke is the know-it-all loner that everybody hates, Ino is the bratty commoner who can't keep her own opinions to herself, and Sakura is the ojou who can't stand anything less than perfect. On top of that, their teacher is completely incorrigible. No wonder that they never get to do anything except for lame D-rank missions and team-building exercises.

The high point of his day ought to have been the private instruction he has with the Yondaime in the afternoons. Sasuke is a talented child and learns quickly, but errant Hokage always tries to 'talk' to him, to dissect him like some missing-nin's rotting corpse (or so he thinks it feels like), and he won't stand for it. He snarks and sneers at his teacher every chance he gets, but the man never gets upset. He just gets this pained, faraway look on his face and stares out the window toward the treetops and beyond, wondering where his beloved son might be now.

Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly nostalgic, the Yondaime would randomly take him out for ramen, and spend hours just talking about his wonderful wife and beautiful little boy, and trailing off at the end like some godforsaken hermit on a deserted island with his life flashing before his eyes.

Sasuke chooses to tune him out and slurp his ramen. Any food was good food.

What he didn't know was that Naruto shared many traits with his father, not the least of which was the one designed to get under Sasuke's skin and chip away at his bitterness. And so a very strange relationship grew.

As for Sasuke's daily life and his extraordinarily dysfunctional team, he learns to take it all in stride, biting harsh words back for the sake of hopefully advancing more quickly in the ranks. It would not help to aggravate the already dismal team dynamic.

Sakura is unbearable, acting like she is so high and mighty and looking down her nose at everybody else due to her noble upbringing. It doesn't seem to enter her head that there might be a way besides hers, and her level of criticism is only exceeded by her sense of pride and honor.

Ino is also unbearable. Independent, passionate, and able to fly into a rage over anything, Ino possesses the same mile-high pride of her rival Sakura, albeit in a different way. Although he generally tolerates her more so than he does Sakura, Sasuke is terribly jealous of her because she had the normal life that he always dreamed of, and yet she threw it all away so easily. Ino herself has nothing against the quiet boy, but her intense attention span never lets her concentrate on his easily forgettable presence for long.

And as for Kakashi, he doesn't teach, he doesn't talk to them, he just sits there reading that horrible pornographic book, the one that Naruto was always reading. Sasuke used to have a modicum of respect for him upon learning that Yondaime was his old teacher and that he had an Uchiha as a teammate, but it quickly evaporated upon meeting him.

Something that didn't occur to Sasuke for some time was the bright side of being among this band of misfits. Blinded by all the negativity beforehand, it took him awhile to realize that although his position of the village pariah remained unchanged, his dynamic on the team did not reflect that. Nobody on his team held that level of hostility toward him that he found on the streets in Konoha. Sakura's sense of honor demanded that she not follow such a petty sense of commoner bias, Ino simply didn't care (and deigned it necessary to rebel against all things conventional), and Kakashi… well, his sensei had had a certain amount of influence upon him and still kept in contact.

Thus, he found himself the middle man on this bizarre team, which brought him a certain amount of unexpected satisfaction.

* * *

A year later, with the chuunin exams rising on the horizon, Team Seven has just finished a simple escort mission in the Land of Grass. Kakashi and the girls decide to stay in the inn in order to catch up on some sleep, but Sasuke opts to enjoy a cup of hot tea at the teahouse nearby.

He is scanning lazily through a newspaper article about the daimyo's daughter's newest beau when his ears suddenly pick up a familiar voice. He can barely conceal his shock and wonder as he meets the familiar eyes of the nearby busboy, whose mouth is hanging open in undiluted horror and who has dropped a plastic crate of fruits onto the floor. No amount of genjutsu could conceal the identity of the missing Golden Boy.

Neither speaks for fear that the other would do something unwise. Then, Sasuke smirks. "I don't believe that we've ever met," he says, sounding extremely fake, "but you look so much like someone I used to know that I couldn't help staring."

Naruto (for that was who it was) recovers quickly, smirks back, and replies cheekily, "That's really cool. You do, too."

They part ways, none the wiser.

* * *

So... I'm falling in and out of love with this story since I got a new plot bunny to grow. Now to go back and edit and put all the page breaks back in; asjklasdgjl.

Ending Theme: Sound the Bugle, by Bryan Adams.


End file.
